New Debate
This one is quite a theological argument and I plan to have quite a bit of disagreement. I have done a lot of thinking on this one so I hope you all enjoy and join in.
Man, inherently good or evil? At Cedarville they teach us that man is inherently evil because of our sin nature. God obviously created man perfect and innocent even to the knowledge of "good and evil" until Adam and Eve were tempted into sin by Satan. God gave Adam specific instructions not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but even in his perfect state he was convinced that God was a liar and he should disobey.
As you can probably tell already that I disagree that man is inherently evil and here's why. In Genesis 3:22 it says that man now has the knowledge of good and evil, he lost his innocence. This means that man knew what was right and what was wrong. The first sin recorded after the fall in the Bible is Cain's murder of his brother. It is clear in the verses that follow that Cain knew it was wrong, but chose to do it anyway.
You could argue that he knew right and wrong because he knew God and grew up hearing about him. The problem with that is first of all Romans 1:18-20 tells us that no man has an excuse to not know God as everything around us declares His glory. Secondly, Cain did not even have a set of rules or laws to live by, again, man knows right and wrong from losing his innocence (you could call it your conscience).
So if every man knows right from wrong by instinct then how can he be inherently evil!? We all obviously have the choice to do wrong if we want, but there's always that feeling inside telling us not to. For the vast majority of the people in the world I would say that first instincts tell them to do good. Other influences in their lives maybe have led them to do the opposite of fail to act on those instincts but it's still there. I'm not a social scientist or anything, but I believe that the way God created us was with the desire to love and help our neighbor rather than wanting to destroy him...and that's my side of the story.
Man, inherently good or evil? At Cedarville they teach us that man is inherently evil because of our sin nature. God obviously created man perfect and innocent even to the knowledge of "good and evil" until Adam and Eve were tempted into sin by Satan. God gave Adam specific instructions not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but even in his perfect state he was convinced that God was a liar and he should disobey.
As you can probably tell already that I disagree that man is inherently evil and here's why. In Genesis 3:22 it says that man now has the knowledge of good and evil, he lost his innocence. This means that man knew what was right and what was wrong. The first sin recorded after the fall in the Bible is Cain's murder of his brother. It is clear in the verses that follow that Cain knew it was wrong, but chose to do it anyway.
You could argue that he knew right and wrong because he knew God and grew up hearing about him. The problem with that is first of all Romans 1:18-20 tells us that no man has an excuse to not know God as everything around us declares His glory. Secondly, Cain did not even have a set of rules or laws to live by, again, man knows right and wrong from losing his innocence (you could call it your conscience).
So if every man knows right from wrong by instinct then how can he be inherently evil!? We all obviously have the choice to do wrong if we want, but there's always that feeling inside telling us not to. For the vast majority of the people in the world I would say that first instincts tell them to do good. Other influences in their lives maybe have led them to do the opposite of fail to act on those instincts but it's still there. I'm not a social scientist or anything, but I believe that the way God created us was with the desire to love and help our neighbor rather than wanting to destroy him...and that's my side of the story.
posted by prozaciswack at
3:56 PM
1 Comments:
Hey man, I'm not going to try to completely refute your argument, though I will say that I believe man to be inherently evil. The reason I belive so is that Adam knew what was the right thing to do (not eat the fruit as God commanded) and he also knew the wrong thing (it would lead to death). Knowing those two things he chose the latter. So you could say that prior to the fall, man had an understanding of right and wrong to at least the extent that he understood who God was and what God commanded.
Now fast forward a few thousand years and read the book of Romans, particularly chapter 5. This is the story of how redemption works. If man isn't inherently evil, there would be no need for redemption. There would be no need for a Savior. True man may know what he should do but that is not the natural reaction. It isn't a matter of what a person can or cannot do or think or decide, it is "inherently" a matter of the heart. Till we come to the realization that we are and always have been completely helpless without the saving and redeeming blood of Christ, there can be no remission for our sins. Sin is what makes us inherently evil. Sin drives us to selfishness, not selflessness. Philippians 2 describes Christ as the humble selfless servant who came to earth as our example.
It isn't a matter of conscience or understanding. It is a matter of either we are seperated from Christ, or covered by His blood and made a member of His family. There is no in between. We are born into this world seperated from Christ. Until we acknowledge Him as our Lord and Savior, we are inherently evil because no one is good (Check out Rom 3).
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Joel, at 8/9/05 11:33 PM
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